


Smuggler's Inn

by LaurelSilver



Series: Winter Wonderland [3]
Category: 2P Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Human AU, Pub owner AU, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelSilver/pseuds/LaurelSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[From the Winter angst with a happy ending prompts] The character slips on ice and injures themselves, but someone helps them and it’s a start of a friendship or romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smuggler's Inn

**Author's Note:**

> Oliver 'England' Kirkland [23]  
> Allen 'America' Jones [24]  
> Matthieu 'Canada' Williams [22]  
> Lutz 'Germany' Beilschmidt [24]  
> Nikolai 'Russia' Braginski [29]

Oliver drags his suitcase behind him, pulling his scarf tighter around his face and neck. His cousin was supposed to pick him up, but after an hour in the cold and twelve unanswered calls, Oliver has decided to just get directions to the Smuggler's Inn, the pub his darling cousin Allen owns, and walk there. The directions are easy enough; head left out the station until you reach the seafront, then right and keep going until you reach the Smuggler's Inn. There's a big sign, you can't miss it.

Except, despite the strong taste of salt in the air, the pavement is icy and slippery under Oliver's dress shoes, leaving him waddling cautiously with short, flat steps, only getting worse on the sea front. The roads have been gritted, the heavy snowfall having become little more than a brownish slush that splashes onto the pavement as car pass. Most of the snow on the pavement has been trampled down, creating a thick, white layer of ice.

Some family bustles carelessly by Oliver, knocking the small man into the wall in front of a closed trinket shop. He skids on the ice, falling straight down and landing hard on his tailbone.

The preteen boy of the family laughs out loud and the mother drags him away by the arm, not even gracing Oliver with an apology. The cold seeps straight through seat of his trousers, clinging damply.

Oliver huffs, grumbling a child-friendly curse as he tries to pulls himself up. His shoes, better suited to soft carpets and dewy gardens, slip repeatedly, and Oliver swears he can hear the preteen laughing again as he gives in, face down on the pavement, scarf-covered nose barely an inch away from the dirty health hazard beneath.

"Hey sweetie," a voice says, and a pair of hands grab him around the abdomen, pulling him up, "You okay? Where's your mom?"

Irritated, Oliver pulls his scarf down from over his face, batting the stranger away. "I am twenty three years old!"

"Oh. Sorry." The strange man is crouched next to Oliver, on the toes of thick boots with thin chains clipped over the foot and in the dips of the soles. His jeans are dark-washed and a little loose on his legs, his red jacket is unzipped over a plaid shirt, and a fuzzy hat is pulled firmly over blond hair. "Is the suitcase yours?"

"Yes," Oliver says a little sharply, pulling himself to kneel, cold water clinging to the shins of his trousers, "I'm trying to get to my cousin's."

"Wait- you're English?"

Oliver sighs. "Yes, I am."

"Are you Allen's cousin?"

"Yes," Oliver blinks at him, "Do you know him?"

"Yeah, I'm one of his residents."

"Residents?"

"Yeah. I live in one of the buildings he owns," the man frowns, "he owns three, just that way," he nods towards the Smuggler's Inn.

"We must be talking about different Allens. My cousin just owns a pub."

"The Smuggler's?"

"Yes."

"We're talking about the same Allen, then."

Oliver stares at the man, still sat on the ice. "I am confused and tired and jetlagged and hungry and cold and-"

The man laughs, standing up. "Do you want a hand, Allen's cousin?"

"Oliver," Oliver grumbles, holding a hand up, "Oliver Kirkland."

"Mathieu Williams. Matt will do." Matt pulls Oliver up, letting the smaller Brit cling to his arm for support. "I've got your suitcase."

"I can pull my own suitcase!" Oliver whines, reaching past Matt. His feet slip _again_ , and he ends up wrapping his arms tightly around Matt's waist before he falls flat on his face. Matt's slimmer than Oliver expected him to be.

"You're really not experienced with cold weather are you?" Matt asks plainly.

Oliver shakes his head, rubbing his face against Matt's side.

Matt sighs, pulling Oliver up and half-dragging him to a short wall. He lifts Oliver onto the wall, Oliver kicking the snow out of the way. Matt turns around, shoves the handle of Oliver's suitcase down and picks it up by the side handle.

"Come on then," he says, back still turned to Oliver as he half-leans on the wall.

"Are you- I can't just let you carry me!" Oliver splutters.

"Do you wanna walk?"

Oliver sighs, wrapping his arms around Matt's neck and carefully letting Matt move away from his wall, organising his legs around Matt's waist.

"We're only over there," Matt says as he walks, Oliver peeking up ahead of them, "You see that sign sticking out ahead?"

"Which one?" Oliver mumbles.

Matt pauses. "I didn't realise how many signs there are. Uh… the big wooden one, on the flagpole."

Oliver peers, heavy snow making it hard to see. A large shield shape seems to float about a hundred yards ahead. and as Oliver focuses he can just about make out the flagpole it hangs from. "Yeah, sort of."

"That's the Smuggler's. We're not going straight in, the stairs down are icy. We'll go round the back. We'll be there in two minutes either way."

Oliver hums. Matt smells sweet, and the tips of his curls are damp against Oliver's cheek.

The sign appears to be wooden, with an inlay depicting smugglers on the beach, "The Smuggler's Inn" painted in a fading gold. Matt turns down the alley just before they reach the sign, Oliver naturally clinging a little tighter to Matt's torso as shadow surrounds them. The buildings are tall, at least four stories high, and close together, almost seeming to lean over Oliver when he looks straight up at them, pale yellow bricks almost indifferentiable from the grey sky in the fading light and heavy snow. The ground is less icy, Matt's footsteps crunching through lumpy snow.

Matt has to put Oliver down to unlock the backdoor, the hallway light shining through the window of the door illuminating a large courtyard. Most of the snow has been swept away from the door, shoved into a lazy heap a few metres away, but more has fallen since then. Thankfully the door opens inwards, and Matt leads Oliver through.

Matt sits on a wooden bench, knocking the snow off his boots and unclipping the chains. "Allen's back room is just there," he points to the door down the narrow hallway, "It should be unlocked. If not, kick it really hard, his lock's a piece of shit."

"That's not very safe, is it?" Oliver titters, pulling his handle out of his suitcase too.

"He hasn't got anything in there," Matt says, "Just a bed and some changes of clothes. He officially lives in the attic, but he's often too tired for the stairs so he crashes in there in a morning. The lock doesn't really _need_ to be good."

"Still…" Oliver sighs, dragging his suitcase along. The door is thankfully unlocked. "Allen!" Oliver calls, leaving his suitcase at the ends of Allen's unmade bed. Crates of alcohol are stacked against the wall either side of a door hung open. Light falls from what at first seems to be square hole in ceiling, which on closer inspection is actually a trapdoor a room above, a step ladder stood underneath.

Oliver heads for the door, far too short to hope to reach the trapdoor even with the step ladder. "Allen!"

"Al!" a broad man, heavily scarred, hollers, "Who's the Pinkie Pie?"

Oliver is behind the bar of the pub, the large room full of noise. People gather everywhere, a couple of televisions playing subtitled news channels fastened above the wooden panelling of the wall. The music blares out of speakers mounted in all the corners Oliver can see. The room seems to be horse-shoe shaped, curling around the back room.

Allen, chubbier than Oliver remembers him, appears from around the corner, "Ollie! What are you doing here?"

"You… you invited me here!" Oliver shrieks.

"Yeah, but you're not supposed to get here until tomorrow."

Oliver pulls his phone out of his pocket. ""Hey Ollie. When you arriving again?" "The twenty-eighth, why?" "Just making sure I get you in the B&B right." What day is it, Allen?"

"The twenty-seventh."

"No, it's the twenty-eighth."

"It's the twenty-seventh."

"It's the twenty-eighth," the broad blond cuts in.

Allen stares at him blankly. "Lutz, why do you betray me like this?"

"The truth doesn't lie, Al," the blond, Lutz, answers with a grin.

Allen sighs deeply, slumping against the bar, rubbing at his head. "God, I fucking hate Christmas."

Oliver gasps.

"Don't start," Allen cuts him off, "I've been working my ass off all week, I'll pay the jar later, okay?"

"You _have_ help," Lutz says firmly, "You have two entire building sof help."

"Two buildings? What?" Oliver splutters.

A bell rings. Allen groans, running off and round the corner again.

"Your Allen," Lutz says, leaning over the bar to talk to Oliver, "Owns this whole building. This place, everything above it, everything either side, and the courtyard out back. That way," he points to his left, "The whole building is the cheapest B&B in the county. Shared bathrooms, patched up furniture, no wifi, no electricity, no pre bookings its first come first served. Mostly gets hitchhikers, backpackers, adventurers, you know the likes.

"The other way," he points to his right, "Massive homeless shelter. He's got connections all over the county to get the people off the streets and into work. No one stays there more than six months except the volunteers who run the place for Allen. A lot of them try to help the pub to, repatching the benches, fixing furniture, or they make donations later. It's the main thing keeping this place afloat.

"And above us," he points up, "Are cheap flats. Very few people stay long because of the noise and the reputation of the people who pass through the shelter and the B&B. So it tends to be people trying to turn their lives around, not a lot of money y'know. Only three people have ever stuck around more than a year; me, Matt and Nikolai."

"Oi!" someone knocks loudly on the wood of the bar, then snaps their fingers at Oliver when they get his attention, "Wine!"

"I don't work here!" Oliver snaps.

Lutz chuckles. He turns around and pulls himself up onto the bar, swinging his legs over the beer taps and hopping down behind the bar. "Allen's serving mulled wine. It's coming from this tap," he points to the third beer tap, "And a Ribena version for kids from here," he points to the fourth, "And plain red from here," he points to the second, "In case of spice allergies, hot Ribena has to made fresh. They're all a dollar fifty. Glasses are under the bar, tills are in the two corners, if they're rude like this douche don't give change. There are signs all over about manners. I'm getting Matt and Nikolai, even if Allen refuses to ask for help." He claps Oliver on the shoulder, heading into the back room.

Oliver grabs a chunky glass mug with a small handle. "Mulled wine?" he asks the impatient customer.

"No shit," the customer says sharply.

Oliver fills the mug, the deep red liquid hot with a sweet, spicy cinnamon smell Oliver loves. He passes the mug over, taking the two dollars and shoving it in the till, heading to serve someone else with a large mug. The first customers yells until Lutz appears from the back, pointing to a sign reading "Change only given in return for manners."

The customer swears, until Lutz growls at them, flexing his muscles 'casually', and the customer head back to their group of friends.

Matt appears from the back room, jacket and hat gone, fully revealing his hair tied in a bunch at the back of his neck. Another man, ridiculously tall, broad and slightly pot bellied follows him, hair dark and messy, heavy bags clinging to small eyes and puffy cheeks, a large nose between. He's heavily tattooed, colours and patterns covering his hands, arms, neck, and any slice of skin noticeable under his shirt as he swings himself over the bar as Lutz had, having to bow his head to avoid smacking it on the ceiling. He leans by the door casually, ignoring the cold, watching the bar.

"That's Nikolai," Lutz tells Oliver as he fills a mug with mulled Ribena, "He works a bouncer for a club in the tourist area. But there's not a lot of a tourists this time of year, so the club's closed. Anyone's causing trouble with you, just give him a wave. The other guy's Matt-"

"Yes, I've met Matt," Oliver cuts in before Lutz can go into anymore lengthy exposition, "He brought me here."

"He brought me here, too. Weird that."

* * *

The bar finally quiets down at around three in the morning, Allen practically collapsing against the bar.

"Go to bed," Lutz tells him firmly as Allen shuts the music off, the silence eerie after the ear splitting noise, "When's the last time you slept?"

"This time yesterday," Allen says, "I haven't got time to sleep."

"I will shove you in dumbwaiter if you don't get some sleep," Nikolai, accent heavy Russian, says.

"Fine, but only a couple of hours," Allen says, "I gotta clean out room seven, Oliver's coming up later."

"I'm already here," Oliver says gently.

"So you are. I gotta go clean room seven."

Matt drags Allen to the back room, shoving him onto the bed. "Room B and room C are clean. Lutz and me are staying in A. Oliver can stay in B or C until I can do a sweep of the B&B."

"You can't do a sweep of the B&B. You don't work for me."

"Go the fuck to sleep Allen."

Oliver pretends not to have heard the swearing as Matt comes back out. Lutz leads Oliver out a back exit to the bar, past a snooker table to the only heaters left on in the back corner of the pub. Cushioned benches are fastened to the walls all around the tables, Nikolai having sat himself right in the corner, feet up on a short stool, arms laid relaxed over the top of the benches. Lutz sits next to him, putting his feet up along the seats, leaning into Nikolai. Oliver sits politely on Nikolai's other side. Matt leaves the bar with a tray of drinks, passing the mulled Ribena to Oliver, a mulled wine to Nikolai, some dark drink to Lutz, and a hot chocolate for himself.

"Come sit in Santa's lap!" Lutz hollers, laughing as he slaps his thigh.

"Let that go already," Nikolai grumbles.

"Make me."

Matt sits nonchalantly on Lutz's legs. "You're an ass."

Lutz laughs again, sending Matt a wink.

Matt rolls his eyes, leaning forward to address Oliver. "You did pretty well, Oliver."

"I was just helping," Oliver mumbles. "I really need a sleep now."

"Well, you have a choice of directly above us, or the floor above that," Lutz says, "Allen won't let us help with the B&B. We're just going to have to be more persistent in our helping."

"It's good of you to help, though."

"Allen's done a lot for us," Matt says calmly.

"I didn't know he did… anything like this."

"He keeps it quiet."

"Lutz doesn't," Nikolai grunts.

"Eyyy," Lutz agrees.

"How he expected to entertain a guest, _and_ run a B &B, _and_ run the pub, only God knows," Matt says, "He always overworks himself."

"You don't?" Lutz and Nikolai chorus.

Nikolai reaches past Lutz, poking Matt carefully in the side. Matt bats his hand away with a mumble of "I'm fine."

"Who'd have thought Allen the troublemaker would become a good Samaritan?" Oliver mumbles into his Ribena.

**Author's Note:**

> Ending there before this spirals deeper into a full length AU. Which I still kind of want to write. This wasn't meant to get this deep.
> 
> Oliver is tiny. This is canon. And he does not like the cold.  
> Oliver constantly messages Allen online, and Allen humours him.  
> In this AU, Matt and Lutz met on the street and became friends. When they tried to turn their lives around, Matt dragged Lutz to the homeless shelter, still in its early days. They found jobs, Matt at the zoo and Lutz in a big shopping centre, and moved into the flats above the pub to keep an eye on Allen. Nikolai just appeared one day, no one really knows where he came from except that he's Russian, scary and damned good at art. All three often work in the pub for no charge. They also often live in the same flat to create more room, especially in winter.  
> The hotel rooms are numbered, flats lettered. Matt should be in A, Lutz B, Nikolai C, but they all stay in B. The rooms in the homeless shelter are assigned random shapes, but are rarely referred to by the shapes.  
> Allen refuses to hire help.  
> Lutz has Gaelic coffee, Matt has hot chocolate with extra chocolate syrup.  
> Lutz was recently a Santa in the middle of the shopping centre.
> 
> I've thought too much into this


End file.
